Mandatory vaccines for care workers now law.

[MercyBooth]

Big Brother Watch
@BigBrotherWatch
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2h
Police cars revolving lightBREAKING

Mandatory vaccines for care workers is now law. Millions more workers will be affected.

The House of Lords passed the new law after just 90 minutes debate, with a regret motion noting there is insufficient evidence for it and that the severity of impact is unknown.

twitter.com/BigBrotherWatch/status/1417573871130234883?s=20

@changingstages

^changingstages

I can absolutely see why people might feel uncomfortable about this but I think it's great news. I've seen people on other threads be told to go and get another job if they don't want to work with people not wearing masks. So if you don't want to get a vaccine, yet work in care - what's the difference? Can't have it both ways.^

Can you see how care workers who don't want to be vaccinated following your advice here might lead to significant problems in a sector that already struggles to recruit enough staff?

Yes @ButteringMyArse I could see how that might be a problem if the vaccine take up rates among care workers wasn't already high. So it'll just be the ones who REALLY don't care about the potential of infecting those they have to look after that have to quit. And I don't really care about them.

Takeup would need to be 100% for there not to be a potential problem with staff loss, which it isn't, and evidently this was enough of a problem for the government to feel it had to be mandated. The issue therefore clearly exists.

So let's be as clear as possible here, in order to prevent any swerving here, the problem I'm referring to is the impact on the vulnerable people you claim to care about here. Not the care workers. Can you see a problem for the vulnerable people receiving care when care workers leave, which some of them are, if they can't be replaced? Which is a very plausible outcome given that the sector already struggled to recruit sufficient workers even before Brexit affected one source of workers and the pandemic happened, and that there are other sectors with shortages such as hospitality where people are likely to easily secure employment?

@lquitit makes some sobering points.

@TheDailyCarbunkle is that in the UK? Do you have a link please?

All residents and staff where I work, have all been fully vaccinated. Some staff even though have been vaccinated, a few have had to self isolate. None of the residents have had covid through out this pandemic.

@foxandbee www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/cambridge-news/cambridge-man-who-suffered-brain-21080503

I'm asking people on here, but I suppose what I'm really interested is whether the government have actually done any planning here, given any thought to how the inevitable loss of at least some staff from the care industry is going to be addressed. One expects ordinary MNers not to have given much thought to the issue, but those in power should really be considering the welfare impact of all possible decisions and outcomes.

Look, I see there's a problem, @ButteringMyArse. My parents have been in and out of care homes in the last 2.5 years and while at home now with a LOT of carers coming in, I expect they will be making the move to a care home permanently in the next six months. So it's not an abstract issue for me. But the recruitment issue was already huge and will have to be addressed no matter what happens. The fact remains that I don't want unvaccinated people looking after my parents, or anyone else's parents, because a) I don't want them to get Covid and b) if they refuse to get vaccinated while knowing the risk I don't trust them to look after anyone. What do we do about that?

I don't have an answer.

[quote TheDailyCarbunkle]@foxandbee www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/cambridge-news/cambridge-man-who-suffered-brain-21080503[/quote]
Thanks Daily. So not lawsuits exactly, but claims on the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme. It will be v interesting to see what
happens with these.

@changingstages

Look, I see there's a problem, *@ButteringMyArse*. My parents have been in and out of care homes in the last 2.5 years and while at home now with a LOT of carers coming in, I expect they will be making the move to a care home permanently in the next six months. So it's not an abstract issue for me. But the recruitment issue was already huge and will have to be addressed no matter what happens. The fact remains that I don't want unvaccinated people looking after my parents, or anyone else's parents, because a) I don't want them to get Covid and b) if they refuse to get vaccinated while knowing the risk I don't trust them to look after anyone. What do we do about that?

I don't have an answer.

Surely if people are unwilling to do an extremely physically and emotionally demanding job for minimum wage or not far above, which also requires them to be medicated, then that's understandable and the answer is to pay a lot more that if you expect someone to care for your loved ones for very little pay there is a limit to what you can demand of them?

@changingstages

Look, I see there's a problem, *@ButteringMyArse*. My parents have been in and out of care homes in the last 2.5 years and while at home now with a LOT of carers coming in, I expect they will be making the move to a care home permanently in the next six months. So it's not an abstract issue for me. But the recruitment issue was already huge and will have to be addressed no matter what happens. The fact remains that I don't want unvaccinated people looking after my parents, or anyone else's parents, because a) I don't want them to get Covid and b) if they refuse to get vaccinated while knowing the risk I don't trust them to look after anyone. What do we do about that?

I don't have an answer.

Ok, I'm glad you can see that.

Fwiw I don't think there's an easy answer either, not within the current structures we have for care anyway. But I am pretty scared of the possibility that this policy makes it less safer for vulnerable people, and bad as the shortages are already, there's plenty of room for them to get worse. I too have a (double jabbed) loved one who needs care, and while I'd prefer fully vaccinated competent carers to unvaccinated competent carers if all else were equal, it would be wildly optimistic to assume that's always going to be the choice.

I absolutely think care workers should be paid more @TheDailyCarbunkle - but the government have just kicked the care announcement into the autumn (again) so I don't see that happening (and I suspect it wasn't on the cards anyway). I'd really love to see care workers being paid more.

I have serious concerns about insisting social care workers are vaccinated. That said, I have concerns that some anti vax people are using this as a method to push their agenda further.

I have concerns that the anti vax label is being thrown around far too freely as a silencing tactic. Rubber stamped by the fact that people who have had all their other jabs are being called this.
Its abusive.

@MercyBooth

I have concerns that the anti vax label is being thrown around far too freely as a silencing tactic. Rubber stamped by the fact that people who have had all their other jabs are being called this. Its abusive.

well if you're anti-vaccination... what else should it be called?

@TheDailyCarbunkle

www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/grandad-left-paralysed-fighting-life-21019751

Grandad left 'paralysed and fighting for life' after Covid vaccine is getting texts for next jab
Anthony Shingler's family said he started to feel numb and had 'pins and needles' shortly after receiving his first AstraZeneca vaccine

I have my flu jab every year at Boots in the first week of December. Im entitled to it for free as a full time carer to DH. But i pay for it so there is one extra jab on the NHS for someone who would really struggle to pay.

So fuck off with your anti vaxx abuse.

Claiming that calling someone an anti-vaxxer isn't a silencing tactic is just silly, it so obviously is. I've been called it a few times. I'm not anti-vaccination, I'm against people being coerced into having a vaccination that has no longitudinal (as in 1year+) safety data. Unlike 'pro-vaxxers' I'm of the opinion that everyone has the right to make their own choice about what's injected into their body and no one should ever be made to feel they have to have something they don't want or feel they don't need.

Some of us were protecting the NHS before it was fashionable

I should add that that opinion is not restricted to vaccinations - I feel that way about every medical intervention/treatment - no one should ever be in a position that they feel they have no choice but to have a medication. Everyone should have a choice about what happens to their body, even if others feel that is a bad choice.

@MercyBooth

I have my flu jab every year at Boots in the first week of December. Im entitled to it for free as a full time carer to DH. But i pay for it so there is one extra jab on the NHS for someone who would really struggle to pay. So fuck off with your anti vaxx abuse.

do you mean me? I wasn't abusing you (if you did mean me) - I wasn't referring to you as an anti-vaxxer. I just don't know what else we should call people if they're anti-vaccination? There must be a better term.

For a huge proportion of people the Covid jab is the first vaccine they have ever had to consent to. Our parents consented to our vaccines or if we are 50+ we may have acquired natural immunity.
People are not used to consenting to vaccines for themselves.

Unless you have travelled outside of Europe, works for NHS, other emergency services or in a prison most of us have not had a vaccine since childhood. Maybe the flu jab but that seems to be viewed differently.

In that case i apologise @changingstages Its because ive seen the term thrown around far too freely.

But i pay for it so there is one extra jab on the NHS for someone who would really struggle to pay.

It doesn't work like that. Do you think they say 'oh @MercyBooth has not come for her jab so I'm going to offer it to someone who should really pay because they're not eligible on the NHS' . Of course not.

@UmteenthUser

They will just start with the care workers, NHS workers next. Same as vaccine passports, start with nightclubs then other places will follow. I will add I don't agree with this at all

Yes, it's a dangerous precedent.

@foxandbee

Given that the vast majority of the UK adult population have been vaccinated already, will we really see swathes of care workers leaving the profession? Is vaccine uptake particularly low amongst care workers?

www.carehomeprofessional.com/short-staffed-care-homes-failing-elderly/

www.health.org.uk/news-and-comment/news/staffing-issues-in-care-homes-have-contributed-to-covid-19-infections

These articles might shed some light on that question. The vaccine uptake was obviously low enough for the government to float mandating 4 months into the vaccination program before there were even figures to support that the uptake was low.
There were quite a few reasons why care workers will have been on the 'unvaccinated' list at that point, none of which makes them anti vaxxers.

I got my second jab in May, no issues with having the vaccination, but up until that point, I was on the list of unvaccinated care workers. Someone who'd accepted, and gladly so, when offered.
Others I work with had to wait to have theirs, because they were within a 4 week window of having covid, and it took another 2/3 weeks for them to arrange their vaccination elsewhere after the time of the covid window had elapsed, as well as the time that was left within the covid window itself. Also recorded as unvaccinated.
The government have not broken down statistics between unvaccinated and refused to be vaccinated, or the reasons some care workers remain unvaccinated, and people haven't thought about this, they've just dived in and started shouting about selfish care workers putting people at risk. Well if you can't take it up at the time it's offered because of their own guidance around this vaccine, then that's hardly selfish is it? Why float to mandate it, and add a 12 week timescale of no jab, no job, before we really know if all care workers have been offered and are able to take that offer? Until we actually know it's a problem?
At the least it discredits care workers more than they already are, why do that?

We don't need swathes of people to leave, because it's already on a shoe string as it is. The last statistic I heard was 10%, well if those 10% leave and aren't replaced immediately, then it's going to cause a drop in care standards.

Right now there are two requirements to go into care work - a covid vaccination and a clean DBS (and some things are not counted now in a DBS) that's it. No training, no qualifications, no aptitude or skills are required to start.
Hardly the flagship of government and governing bodies who want to 'protect the vulnerable' is it?!